Seeker
by vamplady101
Summary: We are all seeking for the world beyond worlds,the one we have seen and can't explain. For 16 year old Sophie,life is different and unusual,between her knack for getting lost in strange places and her dark dreams, the world she seeks is beyond explanation
1. Seeker: Introduction

Since the Story Descriptions are just so lame on —I thought I'd add an extra chapter to explain really what this is about.

This has nothing to do with Van Helsing, but I liked the movie and decided to file my story in here—so, there you go.

--oOo--

Sophia Barnes is leading a normal life—the life that any sixteen year old would lead. She goes to high school, hangs out with friends and has the occasional teenage rift with her parents.

Angsty, sardonic, and all too hot-headed for her own good—one night Sophia lands herself in a tight spot where she must walk home in the middle of the night, all alone—well, almost. But that is just the beginning of her tale.

Her normal life must drag on—pitted with both happiness and disappointments, even the occasional loneliness, she finds solace in the world of dreams—the fantastical place of the other world where nothing makes sense and it doesn't have to; the place where she can find herself completely and utterly isolated.

And then, only to discover that perhaps, even there, she isn't alone—and as the world begins to slowly unfurl around her, piece by piece, she soon realizes—she never has been.


	2. Chapter 1

The drive home was particularly silent. I held our order of Taco Bell on my lap and looked out the window, watching how the blue light of our dashboard cast a glow on my face in the window of the night sky. I tried not to sigh. I wasn't in the mood to fight, not tonight. We finally pulled into the drive way, my father knocked the shift into park and pushed the door open before looking at me. I wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He said acerbically.

"Nothing Dad." I responded curtly, getting out of the car.

"Hey, I don't want any attitude from you tonight."

"I'm not giving you any attitude." I shot back—my temper flared up faster than I had expected.

After getting his things out of the trunk he slammed it, walking rapidly to the mail box in his cocky-arrogant gait that I admittedly mirrored when I was angry.

"Hey, watch that mouth."

I hated when he started every sentence with 'hey', was I a dog? Did I not give him full attention when he talked? Every time he said it, I felt the irritation began to flood my veins and pump underneath my skin.

"What did I say?" my voice rose in a manner that was obviously displeasing to him, I watched the displeasure cross his face heavily, all of the frown lines etching into his weathered, sixty-year old face like mechanical pieces fitting together.

"I'm sick of your shit. All the time, saying something, giving attitude for no damn reason."

"Maybe if you treated me with some respect and stopped making me feel bad about my weight and every little thing about me, I wouldn't."

He looked back at me with his cold, squinty eyes—reflecting the black of the night surrounding us.

"You're such a damn child. Shut your face, I'm sick of this shit. You're such a child."

The rage flung him in my face, his rough words beating at me harder than any fist could.

"Oh, I'm the child?!" I consented my voice to yell back, the heat of my anger thumped at my temples till all my limbs were pulsing cold blood—angry blood.

"Who's the one screaming 'shut your face' to his sixteen year old daughter?! You're the child, I can't believe my own father would be so cruel to me!" I yelled back.

He opened our gate, dismissing every thing I had thrown back at him. He shoved it open and began climbing the steps to our house. I couldn't will myself to go up; I couldn't even will myself to breathe.

He looked down at me, his nearly black eyes assaulting mine.

"Why don't you just go home, you're nothing but a pain in the ass!" He yelled from our top steps as he opened the door. I dropped the food, for now the tears began to fall and I wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing me cry.

"Fine. If I'm so much of a god damn inconvenience to you!"

I yelled over my shoulder as I turned on my heel and walked out into the night.

All I could hear was the reverberations of the front door slamming.

He did not come after me.

It's now nearly ten thirty p.m. I'm halfway to my mother's house, following our windy street tucked into the hills down to a main street. It's really cold, I never remember Los Angeles being this cold in November. I look at my cell phone, no calls from mom since I rang her hysterically trying to mumble between sobs what had happened between my father and I. I sighed coming up to a hill, I was in no spirits to enjoy this walk, which in different circumstances I would have. It's strangely silent, the only sounds to accompany my sporadic sobs are the sharp noises of night's bugs and the echoes of my foot steps on the concrete sidewalk.

The tears till continue to come violently, I'm trying to suppress my urge to shake and muffle my sobs.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Tap-tap, tap, tap, tap-tap.

The claps of my converse against the sidewalk have now been joined by someone else's. I look over my shoulder as I climb the hill.

It's a man.

Despite the sure danger of staring at a stranger this late at night all alone, I continue to do so. He's quite tall and from the broadness of his shoulders as they break through the calm of the night, he seems quite built as well. He's hooded, in jet black.

Yeah, walking in the middle of the night in all black, good idea buddy—I think absent mindedly.

He looks at me, the alabaster skin of his neck and sharp face, the only thing breaking his black form from the shadows of the night. His walk is brisk and purposeful and the fact that I am all alone is not helping to quell my vivid imagination and my automatic suspicions. I turn around and walk casually faster, only turning my head for a sidelong glance in his direction. He's nearly closed half the distance between us and now, my tears start to dry because they've nearly stopped in my eyes, just as my blood has begun to gather around every vital limb, as if I was preparing to fight.

I'm kicking myself for not signing for the earlier rape prevention seminar.

He passes under a street light, illuminating his dark eyes and a soft smile paying at the corner of his mouth.

Great he's a psychopath too. Just great, Sophie—the one night you decide to run off in the middle of the night. . .

I'm walking fast down the hill, he's already at the top of it, the way he stands makes him look far more threatening than I had imagined. I discreetly whip out my cell phone, 911 ready to call at the touch of my thumb.

He's coming down the hill and I haven't even made it to the base yet. Where's my mom?!

Just then a khaki colored Camry whips around the corner, I make a mad dash to the passenger side—flinging the door open like some mad person within three seconds. I cast one glance over my shoulder and into the night.

The thin wrought iron fence juts out of the large property facing me, the perfectly manicured, treeless, shrub-less lawn seems to smile from behind. No cars or obstructions are present and I can't seem to stop this chilling feeling from crawling up my back as I climb in.

He's gone.

Review please and I shall update.


	3. Chapter 2

**I've finally convinced myself to write again despite my writers block.**

**Hope it doesn't suck—thanks for reviewing.**

* * *

I came home crying hysterically. There was no phone call, no message of worry left on the answering machine. Only my mother's comforting, green-eyed gaze as she listened to my painful sobs existed to keep me level. It was nearly three a.m., before I went to bed and six when I hurled my size eight feet over the edge of my bed to get ready for school.

I won't lie—this isn't the kind of _Twilight_ story where the heroine looks perfect with out trying—I looked like the better part of shit. My hair (which I had taken no interest to comb) lay about my shoulders in a mess. Of course the events of the evening prior had graced my usually, relatively calm complexion, with a few pimples and large, dark circles under my hazel brown eyes.

And of course my best friend took no time to make a note of my appearance as she sat beside me for our first period class—Chemistry, _god save me_—and said,

"Dude, what happened? You don't look too good."

I couldn't bring myself to smile as I regarded Sawyer Gallo. She was a tall and very thin sort of person—one of those crazy cross country people—but still looked like she could kick your ass if you pissed her off.

I related to her what had happened between my Dad and I, which was surprising to her. She knew my dad and I had issues but never blow outs like this.

"We've fought like that before, I just," I was trying to be unemotional and it wasn't working. I took a breath, "when I imagined high school, I never saw my dad and I fighting like this—I thought it would just end."

"Your dad is such a jerk."

Its funny how you are the only person who can insult a family member and not be offended—when other people do it, you automatically get angry. But I couldn't be angry with Sawyer because she was right.

"Yeah, he is a jerk." It was disappointing to admit but honest.

And even after all this conversation I couldn't bring myself to tell her about the mysterious man who had been (from what I assume) following me—the man who had seemingly disappeared within a fraction of a second. I watched Goosebumps rise on my arm. Should I tell her? I wanted to; it was too strange not too. I had told Sawyer so many of my weird experiences, she loved hearing anything having to do with the supernatural. If what had happened to me is what you can call a supernatural experience.

"You look tired." My young Chemistry teacher now looked at me with an inquisitive smile and a spark in her blue eyes—how did she get that alert look at this God forsaken hour in the morning?

"Oh, I didn't get to bed till really late last night." I said flashing a fake, please-believe-my-lie smile.

"You should be sleeping," she said with her raspy voice as she passed by. I nodded opening up my chemistry book and staring down at the pages. There was nothing to soothe an emotional crisis like learning fractional distillation.

The day only got better and better—I couldn't help but feel like everyone around me was just _too_ happy—cloud nine levels of happiness. Everywhere I saw fluffy bunnies and magical unicorns and candy and love—it was too much for me! Between watching my friends come to the lunch tables with their perfect sandwich-with-the-crust-cut-off lunches and 'aren't boys so cute, you know what Nick did today. .' sort of conversations, I felt like digging a hole in the middle of campus and crawling in it. Life should never be this ridiculously happy. My only friend to sympathize with me was Sawyer who knew me well enough to lighten my spirits by talking about how shitty her life was going. And that's when you know you have a true friend, when your friend will feign a terrible life just to make you feel better.

The afternoon passed at a crawl, I just wanted to go home and eat some peanut butter, but I couldn't because Sawyer and I had to go to rehearsals for the school play.

I was sitting behind the make shift curtain we had set up in the basement (our production was a kid's play and therefore we were given the shaft and the finger to this cockroach infested pit), overhearing some of the actors talking—making drawings of eyes on my script. I couldn't help but think about my encounter, the glint in his eyes—his eyes looked like pools of black, the way they danced in the darkness still chilled me to think about. I wondered if my mother had not come—what would've happened to me? Or, what if this was some avid jogging enthusiast who happened to make a quick turn as I got in the car in the middle of the night? Then, not only would I be stupid enough to think he was going to kidnap me, but I'd be pathetic enough to perhaps wonder if he was some sort of supernatural thing.

And then in a blink I was back at home. It had only been a day and I already felt like a zombie. Time, moments, they all seemed some sort of lawless thing. One moment I was bent over my homework, the next I was shoving some vegetables around in a sizzling pan, the next I was standing still in the shower, caring not to look at my body and imagine what it would be like if I was 120 pounds instead of 145 pounds, the next I was dressing myself for bed.

I sat cross legged on my bed—my pad of paper staring back at me accusatorily. _Why haven't you visited me? _It whined. _Why haven't you told me anything? _It begins to sob now. _Are_ _you so disgusted with my binding that you can't bear to have your pen touch me anymore? You never look at me the way you used to!!_ It is now wailing—silently of course, because apparently I am the only person who can hear notepads talk, or even has conversations with notepads for that matter.

"I'm upset and I can't deal with this right now." I said slipping on a brusque Russian accent that I had heard on TV when I said goodnight to my mom. I tossed the pen onto my desk, followed by my emotionally distraught notepad. I had lost the desire to write but when I would write I knew that ultimately it would be very good. I was good at writing, to write something was completely effortless and entertaining to me. I always thought that maybe one day I could do it for a living, but the future was one thing I didn't want to think of (in addition to the past), so I instead climbed underneath my covers, letting my eyes close. . . . Darkness.

* * *

The setting is an Island, an Island of night. My dreams are similar to movies in that respect; I can now see the sweeping in of my mind's camera upon the Island. It looks like Catalina Island, rocky, tufts of wild green brush clinging to its sloping hillsides and the clamoring of old houses hanging down the Island all the way to the shore. I am now on the Island, I am walking up a steep incline on one of this Island's winding roads. It looks like day but has the desolation of night; I climb up the road, holding up the skirts to a white dress I am wearing, watching as the brown dust I kick up begins to cling to my hem. I am now standing in front of an old wooden sort of shack; it is so small I can see the wide expanse of blue ocean behind it. The door is wide open and the windows lack glass panes. It is only darkness within them, I pace forward a bit, my eyes intent on the darkness. Suddenly, rummaging sounds, I retreat back, my heart pulsing with a fresh batch of adrenaline. Out of the darkness emerges a face, the light of the day washing over its features as it stares back at me, its perfect white complexion, its dark gathered eyebrows above its calculating red eyes. It stares back at me, the curl of one side into a smile is bone chilling as it fades into the darkness. I continue to seek after it like the dumb white person who walks into a room where all the power has gone out and a mass murdering lunatic has been set loose.

I drop my eyes to the ground, my feet stopping cold in their tracks; I can see the points of someone else's black shoes enter into my view. I feel the breath leave my body, my mouth parting to try to regain the breath again. An icy cold finger slips underneath my chin, its gentle pressure bringing my face up slowly. And now I am looking at him, he's tall and slender but I can see the wideness of his shoulders and the shape of his arm under his black jacket. He looks as out of breath as I am merely looking at him. His red eyes watch my own, the way I study his angular jaw, the black plates of thick hair that cling to his white neck. I find myself at a loss, this feels extremely awkward_. Say something Sophie, say something so you don't look like a fish with an open mouth. _I can't. He let's his figure close the gap between us, I'm looking at this strange person with absolutely no idea what to do. He steps forward, I step back. He steps forward again, I step back. He tilts his head a bit, the corner of his mouth turning up into an amused sort of expression as he studies me. He steps forward, playfully this time but I'm still stepping back out of caution. He steps forward; I step back—wham, right into the hillside. He steps forward. I do nothing but watch him. He steps forward again; I can feel his chest barely touch my own. I slope my shoulders thinking I can sink in somehow but he still maintains our small distance. He smiles at me; I can now see his normal teeth jarred by a pair of elongated canines. I feel my brow furrow, my hand stretching out to touch him. He throws himself away with a smile and continues to walk up the hill. I crane my neck out to watch him but instead, like the idiot I am, walk after him. He has this strange way of walking, he makes few steps but his strides cover twice the distance, his limbs or upper body do not move with him, he is like a statue. He stops suddenly and I with him. It's a house but still more of a rest place, I can hear lots of people inside. I watch him enter the house, but I can't go in. I stay close to the rocky hillside, studying an old, broken down Volkswagen. The black paint is chipping and the windows are so dirty I can hardly make out the torn leather seats sitting behind it. Somehow the car manages to drown out the screaming, the crashing of furniture, the beastly sounds of the carnage that deep within me I know is happening. Finally, the door swings open, he walks out. I can see the blood brushed across the white walls of the house. He approaches me; the intimacy of the space held between us doesn't frighten me so much anymore. I tilt my chin up to look at him, his black jacket is gone, and I can see the cuffs of his white shirt are blood drenched. I bring my hand up to his face, wiping off the little spot of blood hanging off the corner of his now scarlet red lips; it leaves a pink stain upon his white skin. I turn around and open the door to the Volkswagen, sliding onto the torn up seats—he follows. He looks at me, his eyes now a purple sort of chocolate brown, he takes my hand, his square thumb gliding over my pulsing vein. I lean away from him, now wary. _Will he kill me like he did the others? Will I die? Why did I choose this place of all places to sit with him?_

His hand drapes over my neck, making me look Nicaraguan in comparison to his lily white skin. His lips fall open, leaning into me I can feel the burning of a kiss tear across my lips and not surprisingly, I kiss him back—feeling the anxiety manifest itself into a fierce sort of passion, my hand gripping his collar. He doesn't seem bothered, only leans in further and I feel like I can't let go. I shudder, his hands tangle into my autumn stained brown hair, the other lifting my face up to his so that he can look upon me.

_It's been so long. _He doesn't say it but I can hear it.

His lips hook onto mine like they were the only thing keeping him alive.

It is now that I can hear the annoying twang of my alarm clock. My eyes snap open, the image lost. I'm covered in beads of sweat, my heart quickens as I brush my finger tips across my bottom lip. They're moist and I get a strange feeling that the breath still hanging upon them might not be my own.

* * *

**Please review: I like suggestions so that I can improve my writing. Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 3

**Keep reading . . . .**

* * *

It's late November, nearly two weeks since that dream that left me shaking. Sawyer and I were sitting on my bed talking. I looked down at my hands because I couldn't believe what I was telling her.

"And when I turned around, he was gone."

"Dude," I looked up at her oval face, her bright green eyes looked back at me, "It was a vampire!"

We both broke out laughing but I was glad she had said it before I did.

"It was probably some jogger." I said laughing at the absurdity.

"In all black? Who the hell does that?" she put her dirty blonde tangle into a bun.

"Another thing," I said focusing my almond eyes at her, she gave me full attention.

"The next night, I had a strange dream—you know me and my strange dreams. But this one was a class of its own." I said. She clapped giddily stuffing my pillow into her arms and she stood waiting for my re-tell.

"I was on an Island—it kind of looked like Catalina." We both vacationed there when I visited my sister. "I was walking up a road, I came across this shack and this man came out of it," she giggled hysterically.

"A man?! Was he hot?"

"Well, yeah, but . . . . it was weird though, he was like a monster. . with red eyes. He killed people. And I-I, I kissed him. And then I found this old car and we both got in," she now looked at me suspiciously.

"Nothing happened in there," I lied.

She laughed, "Why can't I have strange dreams like that? With hot people kissing me?" she said rolling onto her back, staring up at the dollar bill I had taped onto my ceiling.

"Yeah, but he killed people."

"So?"

"That doesn't bother you?"

"It's just a dream." She reminded me.

It didn't feel like a dream, not to me it didn't. In fact, every night since that dream I had been having odd dreams. Dreams I didn't understand, comforting dreams, dreams that left me wide eyed and scared.

"Let's go next door." Sawyer remarked looking out my window. The lot next door had been unoccupied. There once stood an old house with a wild, overgrown yard. Now the place was torn down, and in it's stead was now a monster of a house, with a pool and a cabana. But empty. I smiled, both of our eyes brimming with youthful taste for adventure. Within the minute we had hoped the fence and were now looking for a place to break in. The back window seemed appropriate since it was wide open.

I felt like a realtor, showing her around the house—I had snuck in before—it was a six bedroom, seven bath commercial mansion.

I looked out across the yard, out of the corner of my eye I caught something out of place. It was a shadow of something strange, elongated and solid—I looked closer. It moved, crouching behind the building. It most definitely was not an animal—it looked like the dark silhouette of a man. My heart began to throb, pulsing new blood into my temples.

"Saw—,"

"Sophie!" Sawyer's excited whisper came as she crossed to the back side of the house.

"Let's get the hell out of here! There's some guy in a car outside watching the house!"

"What?!" I asked, flying down the stairs and making my way down to the kitchen. Hopping up onto the counter, I poked my head cautiously out of the window before hurling myself out of it rather ungracefully. Sawyer followed. Even as we made our way to the fence in a silent hurry, my wide eyes searched the early evening for any sign of the person I had seen—It had to be a person, it couldn't have been anything else.

We made our way to my side of the fence, I looked to the front of the lot, but nothing could be seen past the covered, chain-link fence that surrounded the property. I latched my leg over and threw myself over onto my lawn. Sawyer came tumbling down on top of me, both of our chests pounding so hard that we could barely speak as we ran back into my house. I looked over my shoulder, my eyes scanning the top of the fence for a face or anything, but all I could hear was the silence of the coming evening and my dog's rumbling growl.

"What's wrong Panic?" I asked my medium sized, rust colored husky, her gold eyes fixed themselves to the fence. She didn't move, her windy tail held straight and her ears alert. I walked into the house, shaking off the Goosebumps that had just crawled onto my skin.


	5. Chapter 4

December swept in over November almost as quickly as my relationship with my father had ended—sweeping all the past under the rug like old bits of dust and dirt and pennies that would've stayed bright and shinny had they not been forgotten on the floor. And with December came another milestone for me. I realized how much my life had changed in one single year—I wondered what the next year would bring me.

My 17th birthday was marked by the usual pizza, cake, presents, shrilling girls and really, really bad scary movies. And one more thing.

Another dream.

And while my friends slept pleasantly beside me at my sleep over, I was somewhere completely different . . . far away and removed from the mattress where I lay sandwiched between two of my best friends.

-------

I found myself walking in a meadow—pushed narrowly between two hills. It's a lush green place, the flowers grow in tangles, I can feel them curl around my ankles possessively as I walk by. There are slender black trees in the meadow; they're overcrowded by high grass. The hills are covered by all sort of bugs and flora—I can see geraniums and rose bushes, bees wizzing past my head. I hear a twig snap behind me.

_Sophie . . ._

I see myself, a rare thing in my dreams—I turn around, my almond brown eyes searching for the voice. He's there again, only his eyes aren't red and he doesn't look like a monster at all. But someone human, his eyes are instead large and brown, warm but still calculating.

"How do you know my name?" I feel my arms tense, distrust is flooding me.

"You're older now." I see his thick lips break to speak for the first time. He can sense my anxiety but makes no comment about it.

I want to ask him who he is but I know that this is a dream and that conversations in dreams don't work the same as in reality.

He paces towards me, he's wearing a black jacket and brown pants, a vintage white shirt peeks out from underneath the opening in his jacket.

"How do you know my name?" I ask again.

He smiles, his white skin gathering at crows feet in the corners of his eyes. I can make out the soft indentations of dimples in his thin face. I watch him bend down, letting his hand twist into the flowers and grass that sway at our legs.

"You don't know anything, that's the way it should be. That's the only way this can happen."

"What? What can happen?"

I watch as his hand grasps a bundle of grass blades and flowers, my eyes follow the strain of the muscles laced into his large, square hands. He pulls them up. I can only hear the delicate sounds that his footsteps make upon the vegetation as he approaches me.

"What is happening?" I ask backing against the hard bark of a black tree.

He laughs that sort of condescending laugh that always agitates me when I hear it. He breaks the contents between his hands and lets them fall at my feet.

----

I am awake now. I get up, straightening my shorts as I approach the window, my eyes looking out at the early morning.

_That's the only way this can happen. . . . . ._

I remember the last part of my dream, the part where he disappeared, leaving me alone as I dipped onto my knees, and between my fingers, studied the crumpled form of a geranium pedal.

_That's the only way this can happen. . . . . . _the phrase repeats again in my head.

I brought my hand up to my face, feeling the coolness of my cheek against the back of my hand. I took a breath, the smell alarming me greatly as I did—was it my imagination or did they smell like geraniums?


	6. Chapter 5

**Hello! Sorry for the long periods between updating--but I just re-discovered this story and thought I'd add another chapter. Hope you enjoy!**

**--oOo--**

It was incredible how my imagination could just run away with itself and leave my senses behind completely. As New Year's rolled around I had ardently decided to stop living my life with those dreams plaguing me—I would just let them happen and do what every one else does when they wake up.

Forget them.

I had decided this all before throwing off my clothes before I jumped into the shower. It wasn't that my dreams had become increasingly worse since my birthday. Not at all—it was that I hadn't seen him again. Why was I dreaming of _him_ so often, only to have him disappear altogether? The notion of how uncontrollable my subconscious was, unnerved me to the core. _Me_, Sophia Barnes, _sensible Sophia_, _intelligent Sophia_—_not bloody paranoid schizophrenic Sophia!!_

It was also sardonically amusing to me how inconsistent men were in the general scheme of things—even in my dreams, it seemed. Apparently, I was just as easy to leave behind in my dreams as I was in reality.

I neglected to speak to my father through the breath of fall and onwards to the New Year.

I received a casual call on my birthday, offering me congratulations on being seventeen—sounding as if nothing had happened between us and most likely expecting a warm welcome from me.

He didn't receive one.

I didn't bother to call him on Christmas either—I was in no mood to do anything but focus on my mother and my older brother Pat—the only people who really hadn't up and left me during the course of my life.

But never mind that—what was important about this day was that I was going to see Sawyer. We were going to pull another famous all-nighter. We had a few cute romantic teen novels to read, some good animés, toll house cookie batter and the living room to ourselves. Sawyer lived in a relatively large house, her room was about half my size but her yard was twice that of mine, with a pool and a Jacuzzi.

It was about midnight, we were reading a romance that took place near the sea so we thought it would be interesting to read in her hot tub.

_Great idea in theory but perhaps not so lucrative in retrospect._

Finally she threw the book down onto her patio in her usual dramatic way of doing things. "I can't bloody read in these conditions!"

"Then don't, it was too slow anyways and kind of creepy." I said referring to the parts where the heroine would find footsteps outside of her house, a house she was staying in all alone.

"She's stupid too;" I added, "if I saw those footsteps I'd freak out and go stay with my grandma. Not continue to live in said secluded house by the sea where once can easily be stabbed to death and no one would hear you."

Sawyer laughed, "Yeah, me too. I'm glad we're not like those stupid white people in horror movies who ask 'who's there?' when they hear someone outside."

"Or decide to just go check it out completely defenseless and of course, all alone." I added shaking my head at the idiocy of it—though my mother was known for doing that frequently when she thought something was amiss.

Just then we heard a branch snap outside in the darkness. The hot tub was behind a partition and to the right of the partition was the fence to the other house, from where the noise seemed to sound.

"Looks like one of those weird kids from next door is out." Sawyer whispered.

"Who's there?" I joked, my eyes wearing mock anxiety.

We both broke out into laughter, and after it had subsided, I could hear the sounds of movement in the bushes behind the fence, near the partition.

We looked at each other wide eyed.

"I'm getting out of here before I hear a response," I said and we both scrambled out of the water running as fast as we could into the house.

**---oOo---**

"I saw him again," I said looking up at her ceiling.

We had just watched a few good movies and were in our pajamas getting read to finally go to sleep.

"Who?" Sawyer asked, her voice fatigued and bed-ready.

"The guy in my dream with the car, I saw him again—I forgot to tell you."

"Did anything smexy happen?" her voice was humorously sultry. The question was inevitable, ever since the first dream I had told her about.

I laughed. "No, he just said that I can't know anything because it's the only way 'this'—or something can happen—I don't know, it was just weird."

I could hear her long hair make a dragging sound across the pillow as she turned to look at me. "You are the weirdest person I know."

I knew that, I just wish I knew _wh_y—or even had an inkling of understanding.

"Thanks?" I responded, unsure if that should be a compliment.

". .And what did he mean by 'something can happen'?" She asked. I could feel her large green eyes stare at me, awaiting my psycho-analysis, or some fantastical supernatural conjecture, though I had neither.

I turned to look at her, her face a mass of different shadows, a faint twinkle in her eye separating her visage from anything inhuman, though it was faint in this lighting.

"I don't know—he didn't say . . . he just looked at me and then he opened his hands and in it lay this small, mangled flower—it was torn to pieces. And he put it in my hand—and then, it was over." I neglected to mention the smell that had lingered on my finger tips the morning after. There was surely an explanation for it all, and to suppose a ridiculous one would be to suggest the impossible was in fact the real.

And I really didn't want to freak Sawyer out, she listened to all my babble about ghosts in my house and believing in everything from specters to UFO's—but there had to be a point where you drew the line.

There was a moment of silence lingering about before laughter bubbled up between us again.

"I think there's something wrong with you, Sophie."

I continued to laugh.

"I'm not kidding—I mean, what are your options? One, that some weird guy is following you and that he slips into your dreams . . . or two..."

"That I'm a nut and you should stay away."

She made a hissing sound; I watched as she made a cross with her singers and pressed it onto my forehead. _Oh, if only that were the solution—_then perhaps all of this would go away and my mind wouldn't be throbbing every morning I awoke from a puzzling dream.

"You forgot to ask me." Sawyer said after settling back into her blanket, eyes staring up at the ceiling, counting the dark oak rafters through the blackness.

"Ask you what?" my voice sounded oddly rough, even to my own ears.

"About _my_ dreams, if I had had any lately." She said simply.

"Oh—"

"No, no—its fine, thanks . . . whatever." she interrupted, her voice masking humor in mock hurt and annoyance. She started chuckling, I couldn't help but join in.

"Okay, okay. Sawyer, have you had any dreams lately?" I asked properly.

"Yes." She said. "It was like this. I'm at my house, but it really isn't my house—and outside of my house, there is only this flat field that stretches on forever. And I'm in the middle of nowhere. And it doesn't seem to end—there is nothing in the distance, except a single bus stop, right outside of my house."

I propped my head up on my hand and watched her retell the dream. She continued, focused gaze on the edge of the blanket she kept her finger curled around.

"So I walk, and everything is just so empty—no one is around, there's this sort of deafening kind of quiet and I walk to the bus station. And suddenly there's this boy."

I made a sultry oo-ing sort of sound.

She shook her head, "No, he was little—like eight or nine. And he had this almost white blonde hair and these pale eyes and he smiled and said: 'You have to find the bus or you'll be waiting here."

"And did you say anything?" I asked.

"I asked him something like if he'd seen the bus or if it was coming soon. And this whole time I'm looking out into this flatness and it just frightens me . . .like I feel like I'm trapped here, at the house and there's nothing outside of it but emptiness and farmland."

"That must be like what people feel in Oklahoma." I interjected making her roll her eyes, for it really did stress her. I could see in her face the sense of utter frustration making a subtle crease in her brow.

"And then I started walking past the road where the fields started—like I was just gonna go out and find something and the little boy got up and told me to stop. And I said 'no' and I kept walking and he started saying it louder and louder—No! No! And his voice was just so loud. He started to run after me. And I began flapping my arms up and down like I was going to fly. I looked like such an idiot—," she laughed, "..and then, my feet took off the floor, and suddenly the boys hands were like men's and they were holding onto my waist and dragging me across the road toward the house and I kept flapping trying to break free. But I couldn't."

"What happened next?" I asked now puzzled by the meaning of it.

"Nothing. I woke up." She said simply.

I scoffed, "Well, you certainly have issues."

"Maybe you're insanity is starting to rub off on me." She shot back turning onto her side to sleep. I kept my eyes focused on her ceiling, mulling it over before closing them completely.

"Maybe."

**---oOo---**

3 a. m., my eyes spring open.

Something has been banging on the window—I feel it flush over me, adrenaline packing in my veins as I sit up, looking around.

"Sawyer!" My voice rasps out, I reach out to awaken my friend and find her gone. The place next to me—empty and cold.

The banging begins again, I can't imagine where she's gone off to—maybe into her room to sleep on her bed, or maybe outside and now she's locked out banging to get in. I run to the sliding glass door, stumbling over an ottoman, about to pull the blinders back.

_What if it's a gang?_ Sawyer's house was in a pocket between two neighborhoods with rival gang members, it wasn't uncommon to see drug raids and police stings all over. What if a gunman is outside, needing a place to hide? What if it's just the usual psychopathic maniac with a sawed off shotgun and a taste for innocent suburban families?

Another round of banging brought me out of thought.

_It's probably Sawyer_, I reasoned seeing as there is no other logical reason why she would be gone and banging would be sounding as if someone wanted to get in.

I pushed one set of blinders back enough for my hands to fit through and fumble with the locks on the door—its simply wasn't budging.

Click—I finally heard a sound as the lever for the lock pulled open.

"Sophie?"

A familiar voice called from over my shoulder. I stopped and turned around languidly, confused as I looked over at our sleeping mats, finding Sawyer sitting up—wide awake.

I could see even in the darkness that her eyes were wide as she stared back at me. Her lips pressed into a faint line.

I felt my brow furrow slightly as I tried to make sense of things. It was starkly silent, heavy almost. I hadn't realized how breathless I was until the quiet fell upon us and all I could hear was my heart thumping wildly in my ear accompanied by my shallow panting.

"Sophie, where are you going?" Sawyer asked steadily though I could tell she was alarmed.

I didn't have an answer for her. "What time is it?" I asked instead.

She reached down and retrieved her phone. I watched the light of the screen illuminate her face. She looked up, snapping it closed. "It's three in the morning."

And my heart stopped for a moment, leaping up into my throat, making it hard for me to breathe.

This doesn't make sense—it was three and there was banging, insistent, urgent, albeit even agitated banging—I had heard it. It was as real as Sawyer's voice was to me at present.

I must've seemed distressed; Sawyer frowned slightly, then asked. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I said, noting the curtness of my tone, and nodded my head before walking back to our sleeping mats, getting under the covers again.

"We're you…sleepwalking?" She asked, her voice tentative as if she sensed I was bit unnerved.

"I don't know. Its okay—I'm just going to go to sleep." I murmured turning my back against her and shutting my eyes tight, as if doing so would make the entire occurrence a dream when I awoke the next morning.

It was quiet for some time before she said anything.

"You're shaking."

I remained silent, pretending I was already asleep. I felt her turn over—soft breathing soon to follow.

And I was, shaking so much that a tear spilled down my cheek.

_My God, what's happening to me?_

**---oOo---**

**Anyways, that's it for now--if you like it, review! I appreciate feed back and constructive criticism---No flames please, if you don't like it, simply don't read it.**


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